Identity management generally refers to managing the authentication, authorization, and rights of users and user devices within a computing environment. For example, a computing environment may include backend infrastructure that controls what users and user devices may access services available through the computing environment and what rights such user devices have when accessing the services.
During a public safety incident, a computing environment may be deployed to provide services to public safety personnel handling the incident. This computing environment may be referred to as an incident area network. An incident area network may support users and user devices associated with multiple different agencies and the number of users and user devices needing access to the incident area network may change rapidly. To authenticate and authorize these users and user devices, the incident area network would normally need access to the backend infrastructure for each agency. However, in many situations, an incident area network is operated in a disconnected mode where the network does not have access to other computing environments. Furthermore, duplicating backend infrastructure at the incident area network may not be feasible due to time, resource, and security constraints. Therefore, it may be challenging for the incident area network to authenticate and authorize users and user devices.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.